When we get to the bedroom, Bram strips me naked. He lays me on the bed with my tied hands above my head, and enters my wet pussy hard and fast. He isn’t patient or gentle. He fucks me so hard my teeth rattle.

“Not a virgin girl anymore, are you?” he growls. “Now you’re a woman.”

Hands around my throat, he captures my mouth and devours it. His hips are like pistons. He’s a human version of the fucking machines I’ve seen online, but never thought were real.

This isn’t the man who took my virginity. This is the man who already owns it, and now wants the rest of me.

He tightens his hands over my windpipe until blood fills my head and my bound hands clutch his. “Trust me,” he says, eyes close to mine. “I’ve got you.”

“Do you?” I whisper.

His gaze fills with tenderness, and I relax. “Always.”

Later, after he comes in my mouth and pussy and makes me come while he fucks me from behind, the Bram I know returns. He’s warm and kind and funny, and I’m not afraid of him anymore. Even though I liked it when I was.

“You have a lot of experience,” I say, snuggling again him. “I can tell.”

“Can you?” he says.

“Definitely.”

“You weren’t sure before but after tonight you are?”

“Uh huh,” I say. “How many women have you fucked anyway?”

“Ten. Maybe twenty. Thirty?” He gives me such a sweet, boyish smile, I can’t help but laugh.

“Judging from the numbers I saw, it was a lot more than that.”

“That was a bad month. Or a good one, depending on how you look at it.”

“Any virgins?”

He gives me a smirk. “We’ve talked about this. I lost my virgin virginity with my beautiful Grace.”

Blushing, I bury my face in his chest. “Stop it.”

He kisses the top of my head. “It’s true. You’re my first and last. I swear on my life.”

I wrap my arms around him and squeeze hard. “You had some big parties. There was one night when it looked like a hundred people came over.”

“It was two-hundred, but who’s counting? That was the last time Fritz and I threw a party. The debauchery lasted all weekend and I was bored to death.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

I smile up at him. “I couldn’t believe some of the costumes I saw. Like something from an old-fashioned ball.”

“I like to throw parties where inhibitions get checked at the door. For four or five hours, the only thing people do is live.”

“I didn’t watch it all, but there was another one – wait. This weird costume. I’ll show you.”

I scramble out of bed and skip to the TV. “You don’t have to,” Bram says. “I’m sure I’ll remember.”

“Hang on. It’ll only take two seconds.”

I flip through the case until I find the right disc. At least I think it is. As soon as I put it in, I’ll know.

I push it into the DVD player and stand back with the remote in my hand.

“Come back to bed,” Bram says.

“I will. It’s coming up right now.”

“Grace.” I hear him get up. “I mean it.”

“I won’t get jealous, I promise,” I say, fast-forwarding the disc. “Even if you did fuck fifty sluts that year.” I giggle.

“Ha ha,” he says. “Give me the remote.” He tries to take it from me but I snatch my hand away.

“Grace.” His face is stern. Pretend-stern, I hope. If not, it’s because he’s afraid I’ll pout.

“You’re right,” I say, pressing play. “It was silly to get jealous when you didn’t even know me then. Well, you knew me, but you thought I was evil incarnate.”

“Turn it off. I’m dead fucking serious, Grace.”

The atmosphere is tense. “Oh.”

My stomach sinks. He really is serious. I thought we were having fun teasing each other.

“I’m sorry,” I say. My heart stings. Apparently, Bram’s women and his parties are private. He wants to keep them that way.

Flushing, I walk around the bed to hand him the remote. I see his figure on the screen, walking up the steps. He squats down in front of the DVD player and starts hitting buttons. He presses pause just as another figure comes into view.

I stare at the frozen black-and-white form.

It’s James.

Bram ejects the DVD. “Fuck,” he mutters. “Goddamnit, Grace.”

Mouth slack, I stare at him. “Bram?”

He turns to look at me. My world has just ended. It looks the same. But inside, everything is smashing apart.

His eyes are like two storms burning a hole through to my heart. “You had it all along,” I say.

There’s a moment of frozen silence. “Yes. I did.”

My heart is lead. “I don’t understand.”

“After three weeks in my care, you should.”

I shake my head. My heart is pounding so hard I feel faint. “What’s all this doublespeak, Bram? I should understand? Are you crazy?”

His mouth twitches. “Sit down.”

Suddenly I feel desperate to escape. “No.”

His eyes sear into mine. “I said, sit the fuck down.” He points to the end of the bed. It scares me to see his hand shaking.

Bram. The strongest man I’ve ever known. The man who’s afraid of nothing.

“What?” I say. “Why?”

His voice is deathly quiet. “Because this isn’t going to be easy. Sit down.”

I want to shake my head, but for some reason, I nod instead. Two years of curiosity and frustration and grief well up in my eyes. Even if it kills me, I have to see the last minute of James’s life. I have to know who Bram really is.

“Have you seen it?” I ask.

“Yes.” He looks torn up inside. His eyes are wild and haunted.

I sit on the end of the bed. My chest is so filled with fear I can hardly breathe.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “I do.”

He sits a foot away from me. We’re both naked.

I’m about to ruin everything. We’ll never go back to who we were. We can’t. No love survives something like this.

The thought makes me desperately sick.

I put my hands over my face. I want him to stop, to snap the disc in half and crawl into bed next to me, but I can’t speak. I can’t stop what’s going to happen.

I feel numb as I drop my hands and stare at the screen. Numbness is a defense. I know that. A way to ward off trauma and endure the worst of life.

I’ve been here before. It’s a familiar feeling. Almost comforting.

Bram presses the button on the remote. I sit perfectly still, feeling every shallow breath and desperate heartbeat. This is rock bottom. The worst I can feel. Nothing could be worse. And still I’m living.

On the television screen, Bram walks up the steps. He doesn’t look like the man I know. There’s stress in his face, even in this blurry image. He looks over his shoulder.

I want to warn him, to stop what’s coming. If I make him listen, or scream loud enough, I can go back and change the past.

He goes inside the house and shuts the door. Nothing else happens. I glance at him. He’s staring at the screen, his face tight and colorless.

A second later, another car screams onto the lower left side of the screen. A figure gets out. I gasp and put my hands to my mouth. My toes curl.

James.

He clomps up the steps with a walk I’ve never seen before. He exudes attitude and anger. My James, I think, even as another thought crowds it out. He’s a stranger. After two years, I don’t know who he is anymore.

He pounds on the front door. Though the video is silent, I hear the insistent banging in my head. His mouth snarls open and he shouts something.

He must have been scared. That’s the only explanation. He had a temper, yes, and he yelled when he was angry, but no more than anyone else. People snap. That doesn’t mean they deserve to die.

The door opens and Bram appears. I tear at my bottom lip with my teeth. “Bram, no,” I say, even though I don’t mean it. I’m watching through until the end. I’ll let him destroy everything I care about, for the second time in my life.

James grabs Bram by the collar and shoves him against the wall. He’s shorter and lighter than Bram, but he’s running on adrenaline. Nothing else could explain his coiled fists or snarled mouth. He looks crazy.

I almost don’t believe what I’m seeing. This is Bram’s version of the story. It was never mine.

In my head, James was justifiably pissed off. All he wanted was an apology. He felt it was his duty to tell Bram that he’d kill somebody if he didn’t drive more carefully.

Bram backs away, hands out. He looks calm, even conciliatory. I gasp as James comes after him. Like a martial artist, Bram ducks out of the way and James slams into the wall. He whirls around, his face twisted with rage.

That’s when he goes for the door and tries to get in the house. Bram blocks him with his big, strong body. Only seconds have passed, but my loyalties are slipping. I need to root for James. He’s innocent. He must be.

Something will happen to change everything. The world has to make sense again.

James starts jabbing. His fists flail and he can’t land a punch. He tries to force his way in again. My blood freezes as Bram pulls out a gun.

“No,” I whisper.

James freezes in place. This is where he controls himself and backs off. He’s going to turn back into the man I trusted. Just before Bram murders him, brutally and with no feeling.

Bram turns to go back inside. James yells something. A second later, he tries to wrench the gun from Bram’s hand. Bram spins around. I jump as James falls.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

I close my eyes. Every image I’ve just seen whirls through the blackness in my mind. In the space of half a second, they replay over and over and over again.

I clutch my stomach with aching fingers. Nothing makes sense. Not James, not Bram, not my life. None of this.

When I open my eyes again, Bram is looking at me. The video is paused on James’s still form.

I can’t speak. I can’t swallow or breathe.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“What was he saying?” I whisper.

“I don’t know, that he wouldn’t be treated this way. I don’t really remember.”

“But…if you’d shown this…we wouldn’t have gone to trial. All the time you spent, all the money...I don’t get it.”

“Don’t you, Grace?”

I shake my head. Tears stream down my face and drip from my jaw.

“It’s been our secret for two years,” he says. “It will stay secret.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“I mean this.”

He starts the video again. All I see is James’s body lying still, and Bram on his phone. I know from cell records that he called 911.

He pauses the video and looks at me. “Do you understand now?”

My voice is thick with tears. A sob of frustration bursts from my throat. “Understand? What am I supposed to understand?”

Like a horrible joke, I’m not getting the punch line. He’ll have to explain what’s so tragically obvious.

He raises the remote and rewinds the video thirty-three seconds. “No, Bram,” I say, standing up. “I can’t.”

“You can. Watch the left side of the screen.”

“Why?”

“The car. Watch it.”

I swallow down a flood of tears and watch. He’s already ripped my life and my illusions apart. He can’t destroy them anymore.

As the disc plays, my eyes shift between James and the car. The instant his body falls to the porch, the passenger door opens. A girl jumps out and runs away.

I shake my head. I didn’t see that.

“Play it again,” I tell Bram.

He does. He pauses the disc just after the girl runs offscreen.

When I look at him, his eyes are full of pain and something that almost looks like love. “So now you know,” he says. “I kept that video secret to protect you.”

I’m so confused, it’s like he’s speaking another language. “Me?”

“If people knew you were in the car, that you saw what happened and lied about it –”

“I saw what happened?” I cry. “What are you talking about?”

He grabs me by the shoulders and shakes me. “The video! You just saw it, Grace! Goddamnit –”

“You’re wrong.”

“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m telling you, Bram, I wasn’t there. That girl’s not me.”